Tag Archives: USS Grunion (SS-216)

Famous Fleet boat Easter Egg VLS tribute

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Spotted on submarine reddit: Los Angeles-class Flight II hunter-killer USS Pittsburgh (SSN-720) with her VLS hatches open, showing badges of some famous WWII USN submarines. I don’t know the author, photos taken possibly during SSN-720’s inactivation in dry dock at PSNS & IMF, 2019-2020:

Gato-class USS Wahoo (SS-238) – she gained fame as an aggressive & highly successful submarine after Lieutenant Commander Dudley Walker “Mush” Morton became her skipper. She was sunk by Japanese aircraft in October 1943 while returning home from a patrol in the Sea of Japan.

Gato-class USS Grunion (SS-216) – she sank off Kiska around 30 July 1942, due to accidents caused/related to the circular run of her torpedo.

Gato-class USS Harder (SS-257) – her Commanding Officer, Commander Samuel D. Dealey (1906–1944), “a submariner’s submariner”, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, as well as four Navy Crosses during his lifetime

Gato-class USS Darter (SS-227) – she sank a total of 19,429 tons of Japanese shipping and received the Naval Unit Commendation and four battle stars.

Tambor-class USS Triton (SS-201) – she is credited with the sinking of over 20,000 tons of Japanese shipping & warships and was lost with all hands on or around 15 March 1943. Porpoise-class USS Perch (SS-176) – she was scuttled on March 3, 1942, after a heroic battle against Japanese destroyers.

Salmon-class USS Salmon (SS-182) – she was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism against enemy surface vessels. Tambor-class USS Trout (SS-202) – she sank 12 ships and was lost with all hands on her eleventh war patrol in 1944.

S-class “Sugar boat” USS S-28 (SS-133) – she sank one Japanese ship and was lost at sea with all hands in July 1944. Her wreck was discovered in 2017 at a depth of 8,500 feet (2,600 m) off the coast of Oahu.

Gato-class USS Trigger (SS-237) – she sank 18 ships and received 11 battle stars for World War II service and the Presidential Unit Citation for her fifth, sixth, and seventh war patrols.

Tang-class USS Tang (SS-306) – she sank 33 ships and was sunk during the last engagement by a circular run of her torpedo.

Compare the crests with the list of boats on Eternal Patrol:

(Photo: Chris Eger)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

USS Mannert L. Abele, found

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The only warship named for CDR Mannert Lincoln “Jim” Abele (USNA 1926), a posthumous Navy Cross-earning submarine skipper who was thought to have bagged three Japanese destroyers in a single day before disappearing with his command (USS Grunion, SS-216) off Alaska in 1942, the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele (DD-733) was laid down at Bath in Maine in late 1943, sponsored by his widow, Catharine, and commissioned at Boston Navy Yard, on Independence Day 1944.

USS Mannert L. Abele (DD-733) Off the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts, 1 August 1944, soon after commissioning. She is wearing Camouflage Measure 32, Design 11A. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval History and Heritage Command. Catalog #: NH 46646

Our destroyer soon transited to the Pacific and was part of Kelly Turner’s Task Force (TF) 51 off Iwo Jima and later Okinawa, where, unfortunately, she was the first U.S. warship sunk by a Japanese suicide rocket bomb– the same day Franklin Roosevelt passed.

One of these, as seen at the Pima Air and Space Museum (Photo: Chris Eger)

As noted by NHHC:

On April 12, 1945, Mannert L. Abele was operating 75 miles off the northern coast of Okinawa, when enemy aircraft appeared on radar. Mannert L. Abele engaged with, and damaged, multiple enemy aircraft, until eventually an aircraft managed to crash abreast of the after-fireroom on the starboard side, penetrating the after-engine room. A minute later, the ship was hit at the waterline by a Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka (Cherry Blossom) rocket-powered human-guided bomb, and the resulting explosion caused the ship’s bow and stern to buckle rapidly.

Now, the NHHC has confirmed the identity of a wreck site located in Japanese waters as USS Mannert L. Abele (DD-733) on 25 May.

NHHC’s Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) used information provided by Tim Taylor, an ocean explorer and CEO of Tiburon Subsea, and Taylor’s “Lost 52 Project” team to confirm the identity of the destroyer.

WWII Sumner Class Destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele multi-beam sonar 4500 feet deep offshore Okinawa Japan (Lost 52 Project)

WWII Sumner Class Destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele Bow Hull Number 733. (Lost 52)

“Mannert L. Abele is the final resting place for 84 American Sailors who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of their country,” said NHHC Director Samuel J. Cox, U.S. Navy rear admiral (retired). “My deepest thanks and congratulations to Tim Taylor and his team for discovering this wreck site. Its discovery allows some closure to the families of those lost, and provides us all another opportunity to remember and honor them.”

Grayback discovered

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USS GRAYBACK (SS-208) data plaque, photographed in 1941. NHHC 19-N-24245

The Lost 52 Project, which aims to find all of the U.S. Navy’s WWII submarines still on Eternal Patrol, this week announced they have discovered the final resting place of USS Grayback (SS-208) near Okinawa.

USS GRAYBACK (SS-208) Photographed in 1941. NH 53771

Grayback, a Tambor-class fleet boat, commissioned on 30 June 1941 and was on her 10th War Patrol in the Pacific when she went missing in February 1944. Earning two Navy Unit Commendations and eight battlestars, she chalked up 63,835 tons in Japanese shipping to include over a dozen marus and the destroyer Numakaze.

Grayback (Cdr. John Anderson Moore) was lost with 80 men.

Via The Lost 52

So far, The Lost 52 Project has accounted for five missing boats since 2010, including USS Grunion (SS-216) off Kiska, USS S-28 (SS-133) off Hawaii, USS S-26 (SS-131) off Panama, and USS R-12 (SS-89) off Key West.